How do you feel about your state flagship? Wishing for better ones in NY

Parents Forum
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<p>There is enormous variance among state flagships. There’s a lot I don’t like about the US News rankings, but in some ways the raw scores that determine those rankings are more revealing than the rankings themselves. Here is a list of public flagships and quasi-flagships by US News raw scores, on a 100-point scale in which Harvard and Princeton get 100 and Yale gets 99. (I’ve added a few other high-end privates for comparison purposes). The highest-rated public university is UC Berkeley at 79. UCLA, UVA, Michigan, and UNC-Chapel Hill are clustered near that level. From there it’s a pretty steep drop-off.</p>

<p>US News raw score: university</p>

<p>100: Harvard, Princeton
99: Yale
95: Columbia
94: Stanford
93: Duke
92: Dartmouth
91: Northwestern
87: Brown, Cornell
84: Rice, Notre Dame, Vanderbilt
79: UC Berkeley, Georgetown
78: Carnegie Mellon
77: UCLA, USC, UVA
75: Tufts
74: Michigan
73: UNC Chapel Hill
69: William and Mary
67: Georgia Tech
64: Wisconsin
62: Penn State, Illinois, Texas, U Washington
60: Florida
59: Ohio State
58: U Maryland, Pitt
57: UConn, Georgia
56: Purdue, Texas A&M
55: Clemson, Rutgers, Minnesota
54: Michigan State, Iowa, VaTech
53: UDel
52: Alabama
51: Indiana
50: Auburn, SUNY Binghamton
49: SUNY Stony Brook, U Vermont
48: Colorado, UMass-Amherst, Mizzou
47: Iowa State, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Tennessee
46: NC State, SUNY Buffalo, U New Hampshire
44: Oregon, South Carolina
43: Arizona
42: Kentucky, Utah, Washington State
40: LSU, Arkansas
39: Arizona State, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, Oregon State
38: University of Rhode Island
37: University of Mississippi
35: U Hawaii-Manoa, Maine, Wyoming
34: Mississippi State
33: U Idaho, West Virginia
32: North Dakota
30: New Mexico
29: North Dakota State
28: Montana State, Nevada-Reno
27: South Dakota, South Dakota State, Montana</p>

<p>I happen to think the US News ranking methodology is profoundly biased against public institutions, inter alia because it favors a high cost-per-student model while public universities aim to achieve scale efficiencies that reduce the cost per student. If a public university leverages its huge employee pool to negotiate better employee health insurance rates, that counts as lower faculty compensation in Bob Morse’s world, and the school is punished in the US News ranking. Moreover, the ranking doesn’t recognize that the mission of elite private schools and public universities is just different; the elite privates seek only to educate a tiny handful of elite students and are rewarded for doing so, while the publics have an obligation to educate a larger number of students across a broader spectrum of capabilities and are punished in the rankings for doing so. Consequently, while there are more 2100-plus SAT scorers at a UC Berkeley or a Michigan than at almost any private, the public universities will also take a large number of sub-2100 students and are punished in the rankings for doing so.</p>

<p>With those caveats, though, it is interesting to compare public flagships on the dimensions US News values. And on those dimensions, for whatever they’re worth, it’s pretty clear that the “Big Five” public flagships–UC Berkeley, UCLA, UVA, Michigan, and UNC-Chapel Hill–stand head and shoulders above other public flagships. In fact, by my rough count in at least 40 states the public flagship stands farther from UC Berkeley in Bob Morse’s esteem than UC Berkeley stands from Harvard. </p>

<p>That’s high variance.</p>

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<p>One other question about Binghamton – does it have different levels of selectivity for different majors or divisions? If so, higher stats students may be getting rejected when applying to popular majors or divisions, while lower stats students may be getting accepted when applying to less popular majors or divisions.</p>

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<p>^ ^</p>

<p>Not when I was in HS in the mid’90s. It was mainly eliminate all kids who didn’t meet hard cutoffs in the first round* and then pick the best ones out of the rest. </p>

<p>Also, it would be weird to have selection for majors as Binghamton was mainly known for Arts & Science and Business while other university centers were strong in other areas. </p>

<p>For example, aspiring pre-meds or engineers tended to prefer Stonybrook or Buffalo. </p>

<ul>
<li>Exceptions for special admissions programs for URMs, first generation college students, and those from underserved NY state public schools from which few apply. The last tend to not apply to well-off areas of Downstate NY or to high performing HS like mine.</li>
</ul>

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<p>Here’s how the states stack up, ranked by the US News ranking/rating of their top public university. Also shown (in parentheses) are the top 50-ish private colleges and universities in the state.</p>

<p>State rank, top public university (top 50 private colleges/universities)</p>

<ol>
<li>California (Stanford, Caltech, Pomona, CMC, Harvey Mudd, Scripps, USC, Occidental, Pitzer)</li>
<li>Virginia (Washington & Lee, U Richmond)</li>
<li>Michigan</li>
<li>North Carolina (Duke, Wake Forest, Davidson)</li>
<li>Georgia (Emory)</li>
<li>Wisconsin</li>
<li>(tie) Pennsylvania (Penn, CMU, Swarthmore, Haverford, Bryn Mawr, Lehigh, Bucknell, Lafayette, Dickinson, Franklin & Marshall, Gettysburg) </li>
<li>(tie) Illinois (Chicago, Northwestern)</li>
<li>(tie) Texas (Rice) </li>
<li>(tie) Washington (Whitman)</li>
<li>Florida (UMiami)</li>
<li>Ohio (Oberlin, Kenyon, Case Western, Denison)</li>
<li>Maryland (Johns Hopkins)</li>
<li>Connecticut (Yale, Wesleyan, Trinity, Conn. College)</li>
<li>Indiana (Notre Dame)</li>
<li>(tie) South Carolina (Furman)</li>
<li>(tie) New Jersey (Princeton)</li>
<li>(tie) Minnesota (Carleton, Macalester)</li>
<li>Iowa (Grinnell)</li>
<li>Delaware</li>
<li>Alabama</li>
<li> New York (Columbia, Cornell, Vassar, Colgate, Hamilton, Barnard, NYU, U Rochester, RPI, Bard, Union, Skidmore, Yeshiva)</li>
<li>Vermont (Middlebury)</li>
<li>(tie) Colorado (Colorado College)</li>
<li>(tie) Massachusetts (Harvard, MIT, Williams, Amherst, Wellesley, Tufts, Brandeis, Smith, Mt. Holyoke, Holy Cross, Boston College)</li>
<li>(tie) Missouri (WUSTL)</li>
<li>(tie) Nebraska, Oklahoma, Tennessee (Vanderbilt, Sewanee)</li>
<li>New Hampshire (Dartmouth)</li>
<li>Oregon (Reed)</li>
<li>Arizona</li>
<li>(tie) Kentucky, Utah </li>
<li>(tie) Louisiana, Arkansas</li>
<li>Kansas</li>
<li>Rhode Island (Brown)</li>
<li>Mississippi</li>
<li>(tie) Hawaii, Maine (Bowdoin, Colby, Bates), Wyoming</li>
<li>(tie) Idaho, West Virginia</li>
<li>North Dakota</li>
<li>New Mexico</li>
<li>(tie) Montana, Nevada</li>
<li>South Dakota</li>
<li>Alaska</li>
</ol>

<p>I’d cluster these states into several categories. At the bottom of the list are states that don’t seem to invest much in either public or private higher education, perhaps because they don’t have the resources, or perhaps because they just don’t care. These states seem to be concentrated in the interior West and the less affluent parts of the South.</p>

<p>At the top of the list are states that clearly invest in public higher education. Interestingly, though, they’re a mixed bag when it come to private higher education. Some, like Michigan and Wisconsin and to some extent Virginia, have relatively underdeveloped private educational options; the best and brightest attend public universities because they are clearly the best locally available alternative, and that in turn lends strength to their public universities. Others, like California and Pennsylvania, and to some extent North Carolina, have strong private options, but they also seem to invest fairly heavily in public higher education.</p>

<p>In the middle are some states, like Massachusetts and New York, that have extremely strong private colleges and universities, but mediocre public universities, despite their relative affluence.</p>

<p>Still others, like New Jersey and Maryland, have moderately good public universities and only a few stellar privates; these states tend to export enormous numbers of students in search of excellence beyond their public flagships.</p>

<p>At the end of the day, though, each state is unique, and they’re arrayed along a continuum, or perhaps a two-dimensional continuum, reflecting public and private strength. A third dimension would reflect what percentage of the state’s college-bound students the state exports. A fourth would reflect what percentage of the state’s HS grads attend college.</p>

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<p>Great info, bclintonk. Interesting to see the numbers–this quantifies my feelings about SUNY.</p>

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</p>

<p>While California seemingly has a lot of good private options, remember that California also has a huge population, and most of the good private options are tiny (only USC is large, with Stanford being medium size). Indeed, five or six California public universities may be seen as “flagship quality” in many other states – but when California’s population is several times larger than many other states, that is not too surprising.</p>

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<p>I, too, envy states that have great flagship schools. My kids have looked at them, attended them , and we’ve paid the OOS premium. It was a bit humbling to tell my cousin, that, no, I did not think looking at the SUNY schools was a worth while venture for her, since her state schools have better name recognition and amentities ,not to mention rankings over the NY ones. Few go to a SUNY from OOS, and because of that, it’s even more closed feeling, unlike PSU or UMich that have a larger number of OOS kids and more diversity that way.</p>

<p>Binghamton is a great school but it is too small to be a true flagship. They simply cannot accept that many kids which limits them. UB, a great school, but because Binghamton is perceived as “better”, it loses out on the top kids that choose SUNY. Then there is Geneseo that also get a lot of the good students who want a small school experience. </p>

<p>I’ve been impressed with UB’s offerings and feel that widening its appeal to OOSers would boost the school tremendously and give NY a true flagship. With all of the graduate programs and professional schools there, the sky’s the limit in the academic disciplines. Looking at the books and subject matter being taught there, I feel it is truly an undervalued school. A school gets most of its rep and name recognition from the undergraduate programs, and they just are not getting enough of the top students to make a high mark in ratings and be a more desirable school. I wish Bloomberg had given the $350 million to UB instead of his alma mater. I would love to see this school rise to its potential. It needs a lot of attention. The resources there are excellent.</p>

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<p>I guess reviving a four month old thread isn’t bringing it back from the dead but I think this one was on life support… ;)</p>

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<p>UCBalumnus, I don’t look at the UCs as having a flagship school, per se. Actually our SUNY system was modeled after what you have in CA. We just didn’t do as good of a job in that our top state schools do not hold a candle in reputation, both popular and academic to the UCs. I would say we are on the calibre of the California State schools, which may even rank above the SUNYs if they were the primary state schools of CA. Your state might be broke and there is screaming and yelling about the school systems falling apart, bur you have one dang good system there in terms of education. Not so NY. It just didn’t take off like CA’s system did. Part of the issue, I think, is because there are so many top options here in the North east and in NY itself. Though being in or out of state makes no difference when a school is private, and we are not a huge state like CA and there are ever many top colleges clustered along the eastern shoreboard and within 8 hours of NYC. CA, VA, Michigan have managed to have their top schools be their public universities. Not so NY. The same with Massachusetts which houses some of the most desired schools in the country.</p>

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<p>Ooops, didn’t check the date, Erinsdad, but this is a subject that does weigh heavily on me. I do wish we had a great flagship school here.</p>

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<p>“Binghamton is a great school but it is too small to be a true flagship. They simply cannot accept that many kids which limits them. UB, a great school, but because Binghamton is perceived as “better”, it loses out on the top kids that choose SUNY.” </p>

<p>Even though Binghamton and Stonybrook is overrated for collegebound students here in NYC, I feel this is the only reason why competitive students here apply to these schools as their back up and ignore UB. For me, I still would pick UB even if i did get into Binghamton or Stonybrook(although, it’s closer). UB should receive just as much recognition as Stony and Bing and be known to be great as those schools too.</p>

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<p>I think downstater’s don’t wont to go all the way to Buffalo. If they are at Bing, it’s a quick 2 1/2 hour drive to the city. JMO. </p>

<p>My kid applied to Bing and we thought it was a reach for him given his stats and that he is a ORM there but he did get in. I think being from upstate helped with that. Im the end he had many other choices and ended up at a top 25 LAC whose COA ended up being less. </p>

<p>I do think if a kid is interested in STEM, UAlbany’s College of Science & Nanotechnology is the place to be. Can’t be beat. Cutting edge and one of only a few schools that have that type of facility anywhere in the country.</p>

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<p>The academics are top rate at the 4 universities. I have no qualms about saying that. It’s just that the schools do not have the appeal that the other flagships do. In part, it’s because of the NYC area, which includes a lot of LI and Westchester and other commuting counites, where a lot of the kids go to private schools. Also Buffalo does suffer from its locale, but you know, there is Syracuse right nearby and URoch as well, that get some high stat kids. But Buffalo is a major city, the university has great resources, it just isn’t good enough at this point to make a move into the major flagship group.</p>

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<p>

</p>

<p>That’s a very recent development and would probably be mainly for students interested in nanotechnology and related fields. </p>

<p>Before that, the engineering/CS SUNY flagship schools of choice would have been Stonybrook or Buffalo. Even nowadays, that may still be the case as both of those campuses have longer established engineering/CS programs that are well-respected in the field. </p>

<p>On the other hand, SUNY Albany will need to overcome its long-standing reputation as the “party flagship” among the SUNY university centers with its heavy drinking/partying campus/dorm culture. </p>

<p>This reputation was a reason why back in the '90s, Albany was mainly appealing to HS classmates and neighborhood friends who were near the bottom of their graduating HS classes and not really interested in academics. </p>

<p>One much younger HS classmate who graduated near the very bottom of his graduating class grew so fed up with that heavy partying/drinking campus/dorm atmosphere that he transferred out of Albany and finished at an Top 30 private college around the mid- '00s with a near-full ride scholarship due to his high undergrad GPA.</p>

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<p>URochester has had a decades-long excellent reputation in engineering/STEM fields according to several supervisors/friends with decades long hiring/working experience in those fields. </p>

<p>On the other hand, my impression has been that Syracuse’s reputation was much better in the late '70s than it was when I applied to college in the mid’90s or since. </p>

<p>Among my HS classmates and many younger neighbors, it was regarded as an expensive school mainly of interest for middle-bottom of the class students who want the Big Orange sports college experience. </p>

<p>Even at several non magnet NY/NJ public schools…even suburban ones…Syracuse wasn’t the school of choice for most of those with top academic stats. Very different from the experience of some older cousins who were applying to colleges in the late '70s when it was the college of choice for top NY/NJ area students.</p>

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<p>I do have a question (maybe kind of off topic) and may need some advice from people here on this thread. </p>

<p>So, let’s just say I got into both Stony and Buffalo for Chemical Engineering… Which one would be a better choice? Like upon graduation, which would help me find a job quicker(i don’t know if that’s a good word to use)? Let’s just say I want to work at a pharmaceutical company someday. How is buffalo different from Stony?</p>

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<p>

</p>

<p>Both have established creds in the engineering/STEM world. Not only that, both also have strong pharmacological/medical sciences programs. </p>

<p>Buffalo’s Pharmacy program is highly respected whereas Stonybrook doesn’t have a PharmD program. </p>

<p>I’d dig more deeply to see which chemE program appeals to you more as well as campus atmosphere/preference.</p>

<p>Buffalo: Located far north in an industrial city, but has a large campus with students who are somewhat active and stay on campus for various activities. Has somewhat of a party/drinking culture, but no more than other big campus state schools. </p>

<p>Stonybrook: Located on Northern Long Island in an upper-middle class town. Campus is fair sized, but well-known as a “suitcase school” as most students who are local to LI/NYC tend to go home on weekends/breaks. Campus camaraderie/activity is lacking according to every alum I’ve met because of the “suitcase school” phenomenon.</p>

<p>Visit both campuses if you can to decide/see which is more preferable.</p>

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<p>For ChemE and STEM programs, my understanding is that school granting the degree doesn’t figure much in terms of job options, and that’s even among schools that are even more widely apart in rankings and name recognition. I don’t think it makes a danged bit of difference in most cases whether you go to Stoneybrook or UB. What would be more important is which school you prefer.</p>

<p>However, when you are looking at other programs like the Pharmacy one or other departments, one school may have more available than the other. The Pharmacy program is a case in point.</p>

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<p>“That’s a very recent development and would probably be mainly for students interested in nanotechnology and related fields.”</p>

<p>Yes, I know that as I live here and have watched it’s development from the ground up. I also know several people who are heavily involved there - most from private companies from around the world who have come to the College and are conducting cutting edge research there. The College is a private/public partnership.</p>

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<p>I wish more were made of it.</p>

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<p>Thanks! Buffalo definitely sounds better because it does have everything. The problem I have is the distance and maybe price. I hope that I can afford to go there (still kinda alot for me even though its around 20,000 COA for instate student)</p>